“Got it. Her fever is a bit alarming,” he admitted, reading a digital thermometer. “She clearly has some sort of infection. Her body is trying to fight it and may need a little help.”
“Okay, so how do we help her?” Wylie began to pace as the news became increasingly dark. “What can I do? She won’t eat or drink. I can’t even get her to wake, really.”
“You know I’m a vet, right? This is a little out of my league.”
“You’re a doctor of medicine, though. I know you deal with animals, but is it really that much different than humans? I really don’t have any other options. I’d try to get out of here with McCain’s jet, but when I tapped their cameras, the jet wasn’t in the hangar. Flying it in and right back out might draw the wrong attention.”
“You tapped their security?” Baine waved his hands. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. I have to agree with you there, though. I’m pretty sure there’s still something going on in town. A lot of extra people, if you know what I mean. I understand why everyone is on edge now.”
“Shit. I’m glad we didn’t call for help then. And we handle McCain’s security, so I wasn’t really doing anything illegal.”
“No judgment,” Baine assured, pulling supplies from his bag. “I don’t know what we are dealing with here and really have no way of knowing just by looking at her. I can try a strong antibiotic, assuming this is something bacterial, which I’m pretty sure it is, and we can hope for the best.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
Baine scratched at his day-old scruff. “I don’t know. Not knowing what we’re dealing with is the problem and the risk. This could be a resistant strain of something or require multiple antibiotics…Basically, there’s an endless list of possible therapeutics in question here. She really needs a hospital.”
“I can’t take her to one. We’ll be in custody before her paperwork’s filled out.”
“I really want to help, but anything I do may be more damaging than good too. We’re playing with fire here.”
“Doc, I know I’m putting you in a hard spot, but you really are my only option. If this were your loved one, and it was just you…what would you do? I’ll assume all liability and responsibility. Please, Doc.”
“Fuck. If it were me, I would try to hydrate and run a round of antibiotics. Give it twelve or so hours and re-evaluate. If the condition worsens before that, re-evaluate. You good with giving injections?”
“I can do it.”
“Okay.” Baine pulled more supplies from his bag. “First, I’ll pull a little blood and see if I can figure it out. In the meantime, I’ll give her the first dose. It’s a big one. As long as she doesn’t have any immediate reaction, I’ll leave you with the next two. After six hours, give her these two about three hours apart, and we’ll see what happens.”
“Okay. I can do that. We can do that.” Wylie was desperate, and he’d do anything. “What does your gut say? Should I prepare for anything specific?”
“Wylie, I think you need to prepare for anything. If those wounds were nearly healed and they’re gaping open like that? That cut in Vegas…” Baine let out a deep sigh as he inspected the wound on her arm once more. “It doesn’t add up. It’s too straight and shallow.”
“What does that mean? What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything right now. I’m just letting you know that it may not have been an accident. Let’s cross that bridge when we get there, though.” Baine gave her the first dose of medication and pre-filled two syringes for Wylie to administer later as discussed. “I have a friend. I’d like him to look at the results of her bloodwork once I have them. Don’t worry, I’ll talk in hypotheticals.”
“Thank you, Doc.”
“I was pre-med before I decided I liked animals a lot more than people, so I’ll call in a favor. I don’t know a lot about this type of thing, but I know enough to tell you to be prepared to execute your plan B.”
“I don’t think we have a plan B, Doc.”
Wylie sat at Eva’s bedside for days—two to be exact—with little to no improvement. Initially, the medication seemed to work, and she woke up to eat a little and drink. Doc Baine had returned the next day with more antibiotics and a rigorous schedule in which to give them. He even tossed in a second one to help things along since the first seemed to help, and it offered a clue of sorts.
But they were back to square one, and Eva was worse off than before.
“She needs real treatment, Wylie,” Baine declared. “She needs a hospital.”
“We can’t,” Wylie replied, his eyes full of emotion. “The minute we step in one, especially with something like this, we’re done.”
“Then you go on and meet up with the team and let me take her in.”
“I can’t leave her, Doc. She’s as good as dead if she’s found, and they will find her.”
“She’s going to die, Wylie,” Baine urged. “She’s going to die if we don’t…”
“Got it.” Wylie paced the room, tears streaming down his face. “She can’t die, Doc. She can’t.”
“I have an old colleague. He’s the one I’ve been running her labs by, and he’s here.”
Wylie stepped toe-to-toe with Doc Baine. “You told someone? You flew him here? Fuck, Baine.”
“It’s okay. I know this is…sensitive.”
“Sensitive. Pfft.” Wylie tossed his hands in the air and rolled his eyes at Baine in total frustration. “Really fucking sensitive. We’re both as good as dead now.”
Baine put his hands up in surrender. “Hey, calm down. Hear me out, O’Reilly. I can’t save her. We tried everything I can do. One of McCain’s thoroughbreds is pregnant, and I was out there on rounds. My colleague, Dr. Kyle Mathers, runs a lab in one of McCain’s heavily funded biotech companies, and he’s in charge of all sorts of independent studies. The guy’s a medical genius when it comes to anything from epidemiology to microbiology. He’s the best there is. If anyone asks, he’s here looking for funding and to consult on some of the stuff going on over in the new McCain wings of the hospital. He’s been here many times, so his presence is not out of the norm.”
“So he’s just going to come here to the house? You don’t think that will raise any flags?”
“No, he’ll be at the hospital, where he generally stays when he visits.” Baine shrugged. “Weird guy, he prefers to stay there. McCain arranged accommodations for him when the new wings were being built.”
“How do we get her there and keep her presence a secret?”
“The new wing. It isn’t open yet. I’ll get her in. I have a plan. No nurses or other personnel will be in that part of the hospital yet. I’ll assist Dr. Mathers, and we’ll rotate shifts to stay up with her.”
“How are you going to get her in?” Wylie crossed his arms as he considered the proposal. “I need the plan, Doc.”
“Look, you just put on a disguise. I have her covered,” Baine confirmed.
“A disguise?” Wylie was amused.
“I don’t know. I’m just giving you something to do. Don’t you have a bag of tricks in your line of work?”
“Funny. I’ll put on a hat.”
“Look. You have a lot of friends here in McKenzie. A lot. They want to help. Let them. They don’t have to know you’re here to help you or Eva. Seems a lot of the people around here owe you favors, and they’re happy to oblige. Let them.”
Wylie nodded. “What else can I do?”
“How do you get the cameras in the south parking lot shut off so we can get in the new south wing?”
“I call my brother.”
Baine nodded. “Make the call.”
22
“I can’t say where I am,” Wylie maintained, talking to his brothers on a video call. “Go ahead and run my surroundings through your databases, Liam. You won’t find it.”
“We just want to make sure you two are safe. We’ll discuss you leaving your partner in the field later,” Declan pried. “How can we help
with Eva?”
“I’m already working on it. I have help. They can be trusted.”
Dace chimed in, “Get to Montana, Wy. We need you here, and we can put a team on Eva.”
“I can’t leave her.” He dropped his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to avoid the emotional break he felt threatening. It wasn’t the time. “She’s in really bad shape, and I can’t…”
“We got it, little brother,” Liam reassured, sensing the strain in his voice. “You know we’re here and can dispatch teams if need be, right? If your cover is blown, you get the hell out.”
“Sounds like you have new information.”
Luke recited the details. “We’re following a few leads that fell in our lap. We have confirmation that the drugs and weapons are connected, and the bust fucked up someone’s plan. We’re waiting for other pieces to come in. I know it’s what we already suspected, but now we know for sure that what’s coming for us and what was after Eva are one and the same.”
“We also have a surge in cartel deaths in Portland and all along the West Coast,” Liam added. “Many of those who were released from custody are now dead.”
“Someone is shutting them up.”
“Exactly,” Declan said. “The Russians and Irish have called a temporary truce, and they’re cleaning house together, so there’s an unexpected blowback for whoever we pissed off in DC.”
“That’s an interesting turn of events,” Wylie agreed. “What does that mean, though? Anything for us?”
“Just that it’s a nice distraction and has taken a little focus off us, it seems,” Dace answered. “But it’ll be short-lived. Once the streets are cleared of cartel shit, the Russians and Irish go back to their corners, and we’re back under the spotlight.”
“Is that where the lead is from?” Wylie asked.
“No. Literally just showed up on our hidden servers. It was spread out, so it took me a minute to piece it together when I got the alerts,” Liam answered. “Nobody knows about those servers but us.”
“Can we trust it?” Wylie asked. “Is someone helping us or trapping us?”
“No clue. We have a few more pieces that came in that I can’t decipher,” Liam cautioned. “Whoever is doing it knows how to reach us and knows what’s happening, so that’s something.”
“Kimble?” Wylie asked.
“Could be, but it also could be Kimble who was tailing you all along too. He could be behind Eva being outed to the cartel and her attack,” Dace fired back. “It looked like he flipped in the end there, but that son of a bitch is crafty. We can’t count him in or out on anything. Yet. Hell, we don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
“I can’t help but think this feels like Esteban even though I know it’s literally impossible,” Declan admitted. “This is his type of game. This is how he would play it.”
“He’s dead, Dec,” Wylie reminded. “I know he still haunts you. He haunts all of us. Especially Eva.”
“I realize that. I went to the morgue several times to make sure he was still there and still dead,” Declan admitted. “There’s something about all of this, though, that doesn’t sit right where he’s concerned. When I was undercover and working for him, there were always important people around, including political figures.”
“I don’t doubt there was a tie at one point, but with him out of the picture, that leaves Eva, and she’s clean in that regard,” Wylie insisted. “Now, her people aren’t. Some have turned on her. Why?”
“I just wish I could somehow make the connection. I just can’t come up with names from back then with Esteban that would make sense now. My gut says there’s something there, though,” Declan declared.
“With Kimble missing, I think he’s a viable player.” Dace wasn’t a fan of the man at all. Sure, David was his fiancée’s father, but everything he’d done to them leading up to this point had left a bad taste in his mouth. “The problem is I can paint him both ways. The source of all of this—a real mastermind. It makes sense. But I can also argue he’s on our side because, in the end…he seemed to be. Hell, that’s who could’ve been tailing you, Wy.”
“Good point. Whoever it was, I think we lost them in Vegas. Haven’t had any issues since. And I hope it stays that way,” Wylie added.
“I hate to circle back to the Esteban theory, but there is a drug that can make a person appear to be dead. It’s a paralytic that causes the body to slow to near death, but once it wears off…” Liam chimed in.
“Jesus. I thought that was just in the movies.”
“Oh, it’s real. It’s hard to come by, but it’s real. We’re dealing with a lot of money and power so…”
“So your vote is Esteban?” Wylie asked. “Because if he’s alive, Eva is in even more danger than we thought.”
“I don’t think it’s our working theory at all,” Declan commented. “But I think we need to keep it in the back of our minds as we get more information. I don’t think it will lead to Esteban. I saw him dead more than once, but it could still be a connection to something. We need to unlock more of these clues for something to click.”
“I can go back and dig into his known associates again. Maybe I’ll see something different this time? I’ll also see what I can find on that drug. Maybe I can trace a sale from around the time he died. Although if our creepy brother went for several days, and he was still there and very dead…this wasn’t it. It only lasts a handful of hours.”
“Can’t hurt.” Wylie let out a sigh, exhaustion settling in as he looked over at Eva while they waited for Baine to return. “We need to nail down this backroom club in DC, link it to the cartel, and fish out anyone in between. I feel like we’re close to a break but not close enough.”
“Carter just sent in a message,” Liam interrupted. “He knows who has been springing all the latest arrests from the super max and holding facilities…his boss.”
“No shit? The attorney general?”
Wylie shook his head. This was getting bigger and bigger with every clue, and they didn’t even have a full picture. “Son of a bitch. The next question is…is he a part of this group, or does he owe someone something?”
Liam nodded. “I’ll start digging.”
“If that’s everything, I think we need to disconnect. We’ve been on long enough to be traced and tapped now,” Dace said.
“I’m good. I’ll be in touch,” Wylie promised. “Liam, can you stay on for a minute? I need to talk to you privately.”
23
“The cameras will be off, right?” Doc Baine asked as they approached the hospital.
“Liam put them on a loop instead, so it wouldn’t draw attention. If the cameras go dark, the hospital will look for the source.”
“Good point,” Baine agreed.
“I can’t believe you took an ambulance,” Wylie guffawed, looking around as he sat next to Eva’s gurney in the back. “Smart, but a little crazy.”
“I borrowed it. We all got friends around here.”
Wylie laughed, thinking of those friends and knowing exactly where the ambulance came from—Wylie’s sister, EMT Carigan O’Reilly. “We sure do. What’s the plan? Just pull in and wheel her in?”
“Pretty much.” Baine chortled. “Get that oxygen mask on her and put the pillow under the blanket. We’re here.”
Wylie did as he was asked and put on his own disguise, a hat. When he looked at Eva lying in the bed with what appeared to be a very pregnant belly, thanks to the pillow, he wondered what she’d look like if she really was pregnant.
It was odd to imagine such a thing at this particular time when things were so grim, but he couldn’t help himself. She was beautiful, and he imagined she would be even more so with a glow that came from carrying a child. Maybe even his child. The thought both excited him and pained him. There was no telling if they would ever have that moment, and it was more grim given her current state.
Wylie held her hand and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. She hadn’t been awake for
what felt like days but was more like hours. He missed her. He worried about her. And he willed her to get better.
Leaning down, he whispered, “We’re here, darlin’. You’re going to get help so you can come back to me.”
He swore he saw her eyes flutter just slightly and clung to that as hope whether it happened or not.
“I need you, Eva.” He kissed her forehead and swiped away a lone tear he didn’t even know he’d been clinging to.
Baine opened the rear doors and unlocked the gurney. “You ready, Wy?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Wylie stepped out and laid a hand on Doc’s arm. “Promise me. If it gets crazy, and I have to…go—”
“Wylie, you have my word. If you need to get the hell out of here, you go. I’ve got this. I’ll take care of her and do everything in my power to help her.”
Wylie patted Doc’s back and nodded his head before grabbing his black duffel bag. “Then let’s do this.”
“Mathers is ready for us. Already has the room set up,” Baine said as he pulled the gurney from the ambulance and started pushing it toward the entrance they were using. “Eva will be in good hands, the very best. When he found out what we’re dealing with…let’s just say this is his wheelhouse.”
“And what exactly are we dealing with, Baine?”
“I’m going to have to let you hear it from him because this is far beyond my scope. Hell, all of this has been.”
“Don’t think you aren’t appreciated. I know I put you in a bad situation, but you stepped up. I owe you one, and that’s for life, man.”
As they made their way down a dim hall, approaching the only open door, Baine stopped. “I need you to understand that this is serious. She’s not out of the woods by being here. It’s going to be an uphill battle for her. We’re going to do everything we possibly can for her, given the circumstances, but what I’m saying is…she’s very sick. There are no guarantees.”
Wylie swallowed hard. He understood what Baine was saying, heard him loud and clear. But he refused to believe it or even prepare for it. The only thing he would accept was getting her out of here alive.
Brother's Keeper V: Wylie (the complete series BOX SET): NEW RELEASE + Series Box SET included! Page 130
